Monday, December 15, 2014

Nightie too naughty, you must be kidding!

In what is seen as yet another blow to women’s liberation movement in India, residents of Gothivili of Navi Mumbai imposed a Rs 500 fine on women wandering around in nighties. It’s better to be born a cow in India that can move around in the nude without a care in the world and yet get so much respect that even their shit is considered holy.

Only those who have experienced the untethered pleasure of wearing a nightie on a hot summery day can understand why it’s the preferred garment of so many women who don’t give a damn about what others think of their sartorial choices. Essentially a sack with armholes, it’s the female counterpart of the lungi that’s also a sack but is wrapped around the waist to let the climate in. The lungi does a splendid job of keeping men in heat cool as a cucumber. They say the secret of Gandhi’s Ahimsa movement lay in his dhoti. It’s another matter that the same dhoti turns Khaap taus into imbeciles who never tire of issuing diktats against crafty women for instigating gullible men to rape them.

The nightie as the name suggests was originally meant to be worn at night. But such are its magical abilities to rejuvenate the body after a hectic day - multitasking as the family’s alarm clock, motivational speech giver, conscience keeper and the database of her man’s past mistakes -that women refuse to get out of it. All it requires is a couple of washes to turn as soft and absorbent as a well-used dusting cloth. It’s a forgiving garment that doesn’t hold you back but let’s you spill out in all your paunchy glory.

It’s the closest a Sanskari woman can get to a dress. Since buying a nightie is a usually a choice between “grandma don’t give a shit” and “the porn star (available in blood orange, traffic light yellow and all shades of “ewww”)”, most women end up choosing the former so as to not offend others with the suggestion of a body underneath the garment. It is a known fact that men get agitated at the mere hint of boobs and butt and the grandma nightie does a perfect cover job of it. Coupled with a dupatta or a towel slung over the shoulders, nobody can even make out that you’re a woman. So it beats me, why a shapeless ugly garment that has a better coverage than Airtel and Vodafone put together, has managed to offend the residents of Gothivili so much. It’s not as if she’s turns into a blood sucking hound that targets men and sings like Himesh Reshammiya once she dons the nightie.

Is the sight of a woman’s body so ghastly that it has to be covered in a shroud lest it distracts men from their noble pursuits? Or is the nightie an ugly reminder of a woman’s nightly procreational activities? Hey, if she’s wearing a nightie, she must be having sex, which is against our Indian culture that prefers getting babies home-delivered by storks.

Will it offend people less if we stopped calling them nighties? After all night is when people do hanky-panky things and that automatically gives nightie a sinister connotation.

So, for the sake of all those women who found freedom if not in their lives but in their nighties, let’s start calling them dayties and give them a respectful makeover. A woman in a daytie will keep naughty thoughts at bay and will compel onlookers to restrict their imagination to the wearer’s honourable daytime activities. And if she manages to sprout a tail, she might even get to sit in the middle of a busy intersection and swat flies all day.

"It’s better to be born a cow in India that can move around in the nude without a care in the world and yet get so much respect that even their shit is considered holy" - This is so damn true that I really didn't find it funny. Even cows are better off than women in this country.

Loved this post, it is a new level of hilarious and trademark Purba style! How do you manage to out-do yourself, every single time?

Loved this post! Better coverage than airtel & Vodafone... Lol:-) Are these people crazy or what...such a dheela dhaala comfy garment is being punished for a crime the lungis do by revealing more than the nightie!

With all these diktats about women's apparel flying around,let us pass laws about what men should wear.Discard the western pant shirt for a starter--how do all ye law makers feel about it.Be Indian,wear Indian.

Hahaha The moment I saw that article shared on your TL, I knew you would be doing a post on it. What a delightful read this is! Loved all the puns and wit. I personally dislike the garment but who are we to tell others what to wear and what not to.

I love my nightie and sometimes hang around in it all day. Specially in summers, nothing can beat this garment. But I don't step out of my house in it. It is strictly an indoor garment for me. But then, that's me.

Loved the read. I read your delightful posts early in the morning. This one I read out to my daughter too and we rolled happily. Thank you! :D

Hahaha ! This is absolutely hilarious! Especially the more coverage than airtel and vodafone ! And this line 'Coupled with a dupatta or a towel slung over the shoulders, nobody can even make out that you’re a woman" LOL ! I am tired of writing 'spot -on Purba' ! on all your posts :D

When this garment had made its advent, it was called a 'maxi'-- as opposed to mini, I guess. Wonder when it became a nightie, because in its earlier avatar, it was worn in all its glory through the day and both in and out of the house. The objection to the said garment is more in the north than in the southern states, including Maharashtra. No one bats an eyelid if they see a woman wearing one and going about her business outside the house, with or without a dupatta.Of course this is in predominantly middle class or lower middle class areas. The material is not diaphanous as expensive nightwear and so is not only convenient but also can double as a maxi that it had originally been conceived as. Which is why the diktat in a Mumbai suburb comes as a surprise to me.

When I first saw the picture of the post, I thought I read it before. Never mind. I wanted to read it again and I did. Like you said, nightie is my daytie too on most of the weekends. Do I need to say more that it's just not comfort, but pure bliss ...LOL..I am planning to disown the garment during day time after moving to the housing community from the apt we are living in. Wish me good luck!

I was sitting in my daytie, reading this post and I am with you totally on this one. The cows in India are luckier in many ways, go where you want, do what you want and eat what you want. People in India, I am not saying only the men but those who believe that its the nightie's fault that a molestation or rape took place, please stop and think it wasn't a nightie that did the act it was a man who didn't have self control. Teach your men manners and decency and above all self control. Put exorbitant fines on them for eve teasing, whistling, ogling and the list just goes on and on and on.

OMG!! This made my morning! It's an amazing talent to take social idiosyncrasies and turn them into a well-made dish filled with humorous analogy and slap-in-the-face puns!! Well-done Purba!

P.S - personally not in favor of wearing nighties and roaming out in the market, but hey, last I checked we were still residing in a free country! But I guess in a place where people literally take freedom of expression to mean they can lay bare their lecherous intents through eve-teasing, its time we came up with "freedom to wear what you like"?

Daytie sounds like a sibling to Deity, and THAT is whom we all go to for all our troubles, asking for boons (not the Mills and Boons). So, let this little connotation be, and maybe somewhere, all this paapi-karm by God-fearing-men stop, lest the Daytie unleashes a deadly curse on them.

Grandma nighties versus porn star nighties .. ROFL !! That's so true !! Its been a while since I wore any nighties but there was a time I have worn it and I know the comfort it brings as you rightly said..in letting the paunch out :)

Your flippant thoughts on the garment aptly called the sack was side splitting one honestly every word in the post is true and now I can proudly state that I have never wore one such sack of seducement!!!